


Love in Five Language

by lucius_complex



Series: Lucius Complex's Choose-Your-Own-Storyboard [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff and Angst, Gift Fic, M/M, Romance, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 14:50:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4923784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucius_complex/pseuds/lucius_complex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love is the language of magic - a language that allows the blind to see and the deaf to hear -it speaks to man, nature, and animal, it is the most terrifying, most giving force in the world. </p><p>Here we have two players, and their different ways of seeking, perceiving, and reacting to love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love in Five Language

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DarkWaterFalls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkWaterFalls/gifts).



> So my birthday recently came round and I offered free fics to whoever asked on tumblr! ^ ^ 
> 
> This is for the VERY gorgeous Clareithromycin, who asked for ‘frostiron: different understandings of love’. It’s such a beautiful prompt, so instead of just one drabble I came up with five to in order to do it the justice it deserves. I hope this hits close to what you hoped to see, my dear. I suspect you probably wanted something very different, but this is what my brain came up with.

 

**LOVE IN FIVE LANGUAGE**

_by Lucius Complex_

 

_1_

**_Love is the free thing that binds us all_ **

‘And if you need anything else, you can just call on Jarvis.’ Tony draws breath, finally done with his high-strung explanations. He suspects he’s probably done more to confound than illuminate, but Loki neither looks surprised or irritated.

In fact, the god looks like he isn’t feeling anything.

‘I see,’ his guest says, blinking. His tone has a carefully measured, frozen politeness to it.

‘Yup. So that’s it really.’ Tony resists the urge to plunge further into descriptions of facilities he’s sure Loki has no intention of ever exploring. That he isn’t even remotely tempted by. ‘Do you think you’ll be able to get used to it?’

Loki looks around. Shrugs and sits down on the Midgardian bed. ‘I suppose it’s adequate for a halfway house.’

‘See, that’s why you’re such a hard-to-please son of a bitch. So you’ll stay won’t you? Give us a chance to get acquainted?’

The god eyeballs him dryly. ‘We _are_ acquainted.’

‘So you’ll stay _longer_ and we’ll get acquainted even more.’

‘Stark. You were there earlier. What makes you think I have any choice in the matter?’

Wary of having his eyeballs scratched out by a caged tiger, Tony leans in for a brief peck but changes intention midway, and brushes his mouth against the god instead – a slow and hesitating sweep of lips. Its dry and chaste and not what Tony wants, but he can read the impotent fury on the hard lines of Loki’s shoulders - baked into stone after hours of interrogation in Fury's pleasant company. Watching them finally loosen in surprise is its own kind of reward.

Greedily he breaths in the scent of Loki’s exhalation and whispers, as one would whisper a love spell: ‘Don’t just leave, ok? At least not so soon. It takes me forever to track you down.’

After a brief pause, the god nods, and Tony makes himself walk back to the doorway, because things are just getting better (again) and he doesn’t want it to get awkward (again), or for Loki to misunderstand his overtures. Again.

‘Stark’

He turns around, hands anchored against the door frame; against the desire to push, flee or confess all the awful, brittle emotions crammed behind his throat. ‘Yes?’

‘Stark... I realise that my words might not be easy to believe,’ Loki’s eyes are guarded yes, but also luminous with a kind of ruined, bitter courage that makes Tony’s heart ache. ‘But this time, I'll not leave. I give my word to-'

‘Loki, you know I believe-’ Tony utters simultaneously because he’s a _jackass_ that always talks too fast-

 _You,_ is the word they both don’t say.

Dumbfounded, they stare at each other.

The silence says everything else.

*

 

2

**_We get the love that we think we deserve_ **

 

Loki pulls on the shackles on Tony’s wrist until it stretches taut above his head, forcing the man’s breath to hitch as his body lengthens and undulates, rising into the air like a languid, drugged animal. Firelight flickers on the mortal’s skin, casting delicious shadows upon the hollows of his flesh, setting fire to the moist sheen of sweat overlaying torso, abs, the curving underside of his biceps. His gloved fingers traces the line of a pectoral muscle that quivers under his touch, as if in pain.

‘We should try something new this time,’ Tony says to him with a fake grin. His face is a parody of welcome, right up until he spits directly onto Loki's face.

Loki magics it away with a wave of his hand as he watches the human fall back on his shackles, admiring his handiwork.

‘Your efforts to taunt me into anger are duly noted,’ he drawls, careful to keep his face expressionless as always, despite the emotions that howled within. He would not give this mortal the satisfaction, who had already taken _so much_ from him.

 _‘Fuck_ you, princess diaries. You want to get _really_ dirty with me, let me go and I’ll show you.’

Loki ignores his feeble instructions. His caresses are light and deliberate; the drag of leather on his gloves creating a friction on Tony’s skin that makes him snarl and writhe. By now Tony knows what to expect and has become a master at self-distraction; he sucks in air and spits it out with his usual strew of wisecracks and insults. His spirited eyes are rebellious: sharp, moist and exquisite.  They call to Loki like lodestones; he can no more take his eyes off Tony Stark’s face than he can stop his own breath.

‘You’re free to go, my dear _Tony,'_  the god in turn taunts, ‘if you think you can escape.’ 

He knows that more than anything, the mortal _hates_ Loki using his first name. It only makes rolling the syllables over his tongue all the more satisfying.

Loki thumbs a swollen nipple and watches Tony’s all too-human eyes widen and his breathing hitch before averting his eyes from the spectacle, gaze skittering into the dark, faraway corners of his cell. Refusing to participate.

With a smile he increases the pressure until Stark is squirming, inhaling hard into lips clamped tightly against giving Loki any satisfaction.  His other hand drifts lower, traces agonizing circles below Tony navel, and moves lower still.

‘Why are you doing this?’ the mortal finally bellows as Loki drags him unwillingly toward climax.

‘Because I know you hate it so,’ the god mummers into his ear. One gloved hand comes up to hold the mortal’s jaw in place as Loki’s tongue laves against the delicate shell of his ear, listening to the stuttered breaths Tony makes. ‘Because I want this, Stark. And I shall have it.’ 

‘You’re _mad,_ ’ Tony says, and Loki sees, finally, the first bloom of true terror in his eyes.

The sight proves irresistible: with a groan Loki bends to catch the ripe cherry of that shaking, glistening bottom lip with his own. His hands runs a trail from mouth to throat to chest, then back up again.

He truly has developed an addiction for this very _frail_ neckline, Loki half-laughs to himself, half mad with wonder as his thumb traces the line of this mortal's throat. The frantic, miraculous beat of this mortal pulse hammering against the cage of his skin - the mere sight of it inflames Loki with a thirst like no other.

‘We will do this until you beg for it,’ he promises, and seals Tony’s mouth before he can protest. Gloves tighten with gentle pressure around his neck, teasingly reminding the mortal who controlled his air supply - threat and torture both.

Although as he forces Stark to kiss him back, a stray voice within him wonders which of them is being tortured.

*

 

 

3

**_Love that has been lost is still love_ **

 

‘T-ttto-tog-‘

 _‘Together,’_ Tony says again. ‘Consonant _th_ , like thought, touch, table. Try again.‘

‘Tttoo-kegh, tooget-ther.’

‘Well done,’ Tony beams. ‘Here, you get a jelly bean.’

 _‘B-beee-t,’_ Loki enunciates carefully, taking time to wrestle into submission the downward twist at the end. _‘B-eeen.’_

It is gratifying to see Tony’s face light up at his efforts. ‘Fantastic. See how fast we’re going? At this rate you’re going to run circles around everyone else.’

Loki collects his bean happily. It’s a red one this time, his favourite colour.

‘Come’er you,’ Tony gestures at himself and taps his lips in invitation. ‘I should get a treat too.’

With a laugh Loki leans over, almost stumbling across the table. Tony catches him and hauls him closer until their lips meet.

Tony is like a field full of stars, silent and bright and laughing (except when he isn’t, except when he's shouting at other people but never at Loki). Tony waits and listens for the the real words Loki tries to say beneath the stuttering and he never gets impatient, never gets angry like everybody else does when Loki takes too long to get to a word.

Most importantly, Tony is always _there._ Every single day, for as long as Loki has been awake and staying at the hospice Tony has always shown up and taken his hand and promised never to let go again.

‘EWwww,’ Tony begins to make a face. ‘Who hasn’t brushed his teeth this morning? Who?’

Grinning, Loki kisses Tony with his morning breath, and laughs and laughs and laughs.

*

 

 

4

**_Love will wear any face for love_ **

****

‘And were you seduced?’ Stark grinned, toothy and sharp. ‘That just means you’ve fallen for my master plan.’

‘And what plan is that?’ Loki asked as she stepped back into her dress. She rolled her neck, a languid move as Stark approached her from behind and begun to zip her dress up.

‘No less than world domination of course. With you as my ultimate weapon, what can we not do? Just think of the possibilities.’

‘The nerve of you,’ Loki played along. ‘Thinking I can’t conquer one miserable blue ball on my own.’

‘I was thinking more along the lines of _managing_ the blue ball,’ Stark says huskily. ‘For a given value, for a little while? Could be fun too. Governments to bully, photoshoots to pose for, villains to beat up-‘

‘Because you do such a good job so far of beating me up.’

‘Your very own action figure-’ Stark mouthed at her neck as his hands wandered down the accentuated curves of her hips, pressing them closer together.

Loki tipped her head back, eyes fluttering shut. This was why she would never wear a dress without a back zip to Stark tower. Preferably a long one. ‘Mmmm. Tempting, but I should go.’

 _‘Two_ action figures? One for each of you just to be fair. Come on, I’m trying here.’

‘You are trying, my dear. _Very_ trying.’

‘The better to seduce you with, my dear. I have to make sure my overtures are better than any other you’ve had.’ He paused. ‘Unless you already made up your mind, of course.’

She spared a thought- the briefest of seconds, quickly dismissed – to wonder if Stark guessed that many had attempted to do exactly that.

‘I bet we could be great together.’

‘Oh yes,’ Loki laughed breathily as she turned around.  ‘You, me, and your pet Avengers. The perfect fiction.’

‘Loki,’ Stark started, and then hesitated. ‘I don’t want to misunderstand. Tell me what you want.’

She’d never tell him, but Loki loved his care and caution, the split second of delay Stark always took before he replied. Stark made no assumptions. He was in every way the absolute opposite of Thor.

Save in battle, Stark was all but anti-Asgardian.

Her eyelashes flicker down, hiding her expression – it happened rarely, but Stark _had_ proven eerily canny at reading her emotions before. It wouldn’t do for him to see.

‘It matters little, in the grand scheme of things.’

The day Stark wanted to blow up the world, he’d do it with his own two hands. That was simply the make of the man – Stark valued only the things he could make himself. He trusted and took satisfaction in little else – yet seemed to constantly make an exception for Loki.

‘Well too bad. I’ll miss you,’ Stark took her hand, cradled them with both his hands and brought it to his lips. ‘My lady.’

‘Until we meet again.’

‘May it be soon,’ the mortal replied with a quirk of his lips, his hands as always shoved into his pockets, once he removed them from her skin.

With a sad little smile, she shimmered back into the god - and the man. They didn’t use to make their goodbyes in Loki’s real skin, but somewhere along the line it’d happened, and now it was simply the way partings went.

‘I don’t think even a state as rich as yours could foot the bill for that much destruction,’ the god said softly, and vanished.

The last thing Loki thought he saw were warm brown eyes, mute and expressive with longing.

But perhaps that was just wistful thinking.

*

 

 

5

**_Love is far easier to experience than define_ **

 

Stark is brash, wonderful, loutish, and Loki adored him. Enough to stay on in New York after his sorry-arsed fiasco at world-conquering, pick up the lingo, and become a fashion designer in New York. After all, the god of mischief wasn’t just good for hijacking blue cubes and opening random portals, he also had an eye for tailoring that the stuck up inhabitants of the Flatiron district would die for; because who the hell wears these kind of synthetics anymore.

Thor, being the numbskull he was, had been delectably hostile and suspicious of Loki’s motives at first, then sickeningly sentimental over Loki’s apparent penitence and the transformative power of love. Whatever, as the mortals liked to say. Loki had contributed some of his drawings to the Re-Dress NY Project, but given that it’d taken him a mere morning’s work (using Stark’s stomach as a breakfast platter) and resulted in over 75,000 hits on his Facebook page, it was something Loki hadn’t mind occasionally milking for brownie points amongst the city’s sartorial minded inhabitants.

It’s a good thing Loki had discovered early that New York was much faster to forgive, when evil turned up in a sharp suit.

Things went swimmingly along for a while. And then they started going ~~apple~~ pear shaped, and naturally Thor had everything to do with it.

‘Give up my _what?’_

‘Your immortality,’ Thor supplied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘Now that you are in the throes of love, brother, surely you would want a similar lifespan as your mortal companion, to spare yourself the endless years of grief inevitable.’

‘For the last time, I’m not in love with Tony Stark, Thor. We are just sleeping together.’

‘Loki, perhaps you should learn to express your feelings of love for Stark the way you learnt to express your lusts; after all, if the both of you end up raising a chi-‘

‘I am not having such conversations with my older brother! I am two thousand years old!’

‘I only ask that you think upon it,’ Thor continued speaking over his head, fantasies of future little half-human nephews likely barreling through his brain. ‘One must prepare for the future least it catches us unawares.’

Loki planted both his hands on the table and stood up. ‘I’m going to finish the sketch of this biased-cut leather vest that’s been haunting me, and then I’m going to look up and you better be gone. Brother _dear.’_

‘I’ll send Mother your love and tell her the good news,’ his brother beamed, grabbing his shoulder and squeezing several muscles out alignment, Loki was sure.

He watched his brother saunter away whistling, no doubt to regale the whole of Asgard with impossibly sappy love stories, all happily blown out of proportion in his deluded head.

‘Not giving up my godhood,’ Loki murmured feverishly to himself as he continued to sketch, bad-temperedly breaking multiple nibs on his drawing pad. ‘I’d sooner give up leather pants first.’

He happily sketched and muttered to himself, and didn’t deign to look up until someone started noisily clearing his throat.

‘Hey babe,’ Tony stood at his doorway, surveying his dominion with a raised eyebrow. ‘What a mess. Guess Thor came by earlier huh.’

‘Who else?’ Loki snarled, broke another nib, and flung his latest offending implement to the floor, where it skittered to a halt against Tony’s sneakers.

His boyfriend stifled a sigh and discreetly rolled the marker away as he sallied in, ostentatiously to liberate Loki from the bottle green Eames executive chair he’d inhabited for the last nine hours. ‘Let me take you out for sushi, you’ve been cooped up long enough here.’

Loki turned his best rebellious eyes on him. _‘No.’_

‘Come on babycakes, its Friday. We don’t fight on Fridays.’

‘I am Loki and I shall pick fights with anyone I want, at any time of day or night that I want!’

‘Nuh-uh. You’re going to be a good god now and bury the hatchet. Glowstick. Er, javelin? Spear?'

Incensed, the god drummed his fingers on the table, but Tony as usual was too thick to understand the subtleties of body language. ‘Stark, have you taken leave of your sense and forgotten that your lover is an immortal serial killer? A demon spawn of the first water?’

Tony squints at him. ‘What did you do to your hair today? It’s all… fluffy and adorable.’

Bor’s teeth. _Why_ was everyone so intent on misunderstanding him today?

‘I have committed deeds of indescribable horrors,’ Loki said almost earnestly to correct this.

‘Indiscernible, yes.’ Tony begun to dropping missile kisses over the top of his head.

‘DAMMIT Stark, I tried to destroy your city! I tried to destroy the world!’

‘Temper temper,’ Tony hushed. ‘We all know you love me to bits. Even Fury admitted it last week, caved right in and said it plain as day. Clint owes me a hundred bucks.’

Loki narrowed his (surely dastardly-looking) eyes. ‘By the Norns, what must I do to get you all to believe me; open another portal and call down a new hoard of _tpppft-‘_

The rest of his words was pushed back into his mouth by Tony’s enthusiastic, over talented tongue. Loki swallowed a scream of frustration and started marshaling arguments- and just as promptly forgot them as Tony pulled them closer together.

‘Always knew I had the power to render you speechless,’ the idiot human declared when he finally pulled away and rocked against the balls of his feet, shit-eating grin firmly in place. ‘I’m going to give you one more hour to pout and then I’m coming back for you, guns blazing.’

‘Yeah yeah,’ the god rolled his eyes at Tony, although that didn’t stop him from simultaneously checking out his ass.

‘Bye bye, bunny fluff,’ Tony winked as the lift doors close around him, leaving Loki staring in bewildered outrage at the empty living room.

Whatever. Stark would die eventually anyways. It wasn’t a big deal. Just a blimp in the timeline of Loki’s long and illustrious world-walking and occasional planet-abolishing career; plenty of openings left.

And he doesn’t need to know about the apple Loki had carefully hidden in his drawer. Nobody did.

*

[FINI]

 

 


End file.
